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Toronto’s Local Guides work to improve Google Maps and the city in the process

If YouTubers getting tens of millions of video views are considered online stars, it’s hard to know what to call a couple of prolific Toronto contributors to Google Maps.

“Our numbers are 274,454,383 views between Richard and I and, by the end of the month, we should be up to 1.2 million views per day,” said Sydney Eatz who, with Richard Trus, photographs and describes shops, parks and thousands of other Toronto sites, uploading the results to Google’s online navigation tool.

They are Local Guides, citizen contributors in a global program. They earn virtual points and badges in exchange for continuously improving Google Maps with detailed and accurate “user-generated content.”

While YouTube stars with viral videos can get famous plus rich from ad revenue, Eatz and Trus earn prestige among other Local Guides, and connections but no cash from the massive number of international eyeballs scanning their photos of gas stations or notes about a particular restaurant’s pasta and patio.

“We get paid in satisfaction, knowing we are helping people,” says Eatz, an aspiring video producer and host known online by the first name “Hottie” in reference to sweating from a hyperthyroid condition that also keeps her continuously hungry.

Trus, who has a background in visual technology, adds: “There’s this real world and there’s this digital world, and Google Maps is the translator in between, and we’re specialists in that. Between Sydney and I we are ranked top 20 (Local Guides) in the world. There are companies now approaching us,” with opportunities to leverage that.

Local Guides launched in 2015, similar to online review site Yelp’s “elite” program. Google says it now has 33 million Local Guides in more than 240 communities, with Toronto among the most vibrant.

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Toronto Guides have dozens of informal “meetups” each year. In February the company threw them a party at the Art Gallery of Ontario as a reward for placing fourth in a worldwide “challenge.”

While it may seem a nerdy hobby, like Pokemon Go, Local Guides can literally put businesses on the map and potentially help the city as a whole.

Digital Main Street, a partnership of the City of Toronto and TABIA, an association of neighbourhood merchants’ groups, is working with Trus and Eatz to get thousands of businesses photographed, inside and out, for Google Maps and to show them how to take control of a pop-up profile that displays hours and other information.

The service is free and businesses can apply for a course and $2,500 grant to increase their digital footprint.

“This push is great for the businesses and to helps consumers who want directions but also to know things like if a coffee shop has free Wi-Fi and plugs for their laptops,” says Darryl Julott, program manager at Digital Main Street which counts Google among its corporate partners.

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“As a city, we’re competitive if not ahead and all this helps. In the last few years there has been a huge tech shift toward Toronto.”

They are constantly surprised at which photos get the most eyeballs. The Burlington head office of an educational games producer has more than 2 million views, while an organic fish store has more than 300,000.

The more information on local maps, such as which businesses are LGBTQ friendly, or where popular TV shows or movies were shot, the more chance Toronto has of luring visitors who share niche interests, they add.

They squired a visiting Google executive who wanted to do the CN Tower Edgewalk, but also eat at Burger’s Priest, because she’s an aficionado, walk through Graffiti Alley, which she’d seen on Google Maps, and drink at Harry Potter-themed bar The Lockhart because she’s a Potterhead.

Trus argues that having hyper-detailed online maps can also boost Toronto in the tech race, noting an Alphabet firm is reportedly bidding to build a high-tech test neighbourhood in Quayside on the city’s eastern waterfront.

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“The projects that Sidewalk Labs are doing are things like drone delivery, driverless cars, and all of these things are based on maps,” he says. “You can use analytics to build a city rather than opinions.”

Albry Smither, Google’s global lead for Local Guides, wouldn’t comment on any bids for Quayside.

She did say: “A well-mapped city is useful. We have trucks and cars mapping the country every day... The Toronto Local Guides community has tripled over the past two-and-a-half years. We have a really active user base who are super-engaged about adding their user-generated content.”

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